The Strait of Hormuz crisis and the continuing crisis in the Bab al-Mandab Strait have shown that narrow maritime passages can and will be used as political weapons in future conflicts. The state actors in Tehran and the non-state actors in Sanaa, however, may not be the only ones that may leverage these choke points in future. For example, Oman’s ports could present an essential part of any land route alternatives like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) that avoid both the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Hormuz. However, they have also faced drone attacks in the current war and will likely face political instabilities in future. An alternative that has come into greater focus is the North Sea Route (NSR) or the Arctic route. Surprisingly, recent reductions in Arctic ice levels have increased the feasibility of using the NSR, now potentially facilitating the movement of goods. 

Iran asserts its right to regulate shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Under its 1993 law, innocent passage is subject to prior authorization based on Iran’s national security. The present crisis created by the Iran war has highlighted how the food security of many countries is connected to oil through fertilizer prices, which have witnessed a price surge. Before the war, around 30% of global fertilizers were exported by gulf countries through the Strait of Hormuz. Additionally, 20% of global liquified natural gas is used as the feedstock for making fertilizers and much traveled through the Suez Canal before the Houthis disrupted trade. While the rest of the world will face higher food prices, the Gulf countries, which import up to 85% of their food, are still affected. Asian countries like China, India, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore are highly dependent on oil imports from the Middle East and must now find alternatives. In the present crisis, increased imports from the U.S. have provided relief to these countries, but the Cape of Good Hope route, needed for this transport, is time-consuming and increases costs.  

The NSR is also not without its share of complex legal matters. Russia has established laws and codes for regulating passage through NSR. Russia classifies the NSR as its internal waters and does not recognize the international right of innocent passage through it. All ships need prior authorization while foreign warships must notify their intended passage 90 days in advance. Ships may be required to use the services of Russian icebreaker escorts and pilots. Russia justifies its claim under article 234 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Known as the “Arctic Exception,” it applies to all “Ice-covered areas.” It grants coastal states the right to enforce non-discriminatory laws in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) to prevent marine pollution in the ice-covered areas. The U.S. and other countries argue that UNCLOS protects innocent passage through territorial seas and hence the Russian law is contrary to the provisions of UNCLOS. 

Unlike the Middle East shipping passages, however, the NSR has been in conflict and has not had any kinetic combat or active armed conflict. The free navigation operations may operate here because the U.S. may be reluctant to indulge in hostilities against and may not be equipped to do so. Simultaneously, there may be U.S. interest in selling its oil to East, Southeast, and South Asia through this route. Russia may also find advantage in developing this route and is seeking partners to develop it. Several countries have already reached agreements with Russia to take advantage of the NSR. 

Russia is already using its Arctic coast seasonally to deliver LNG from its Yamal project to Europe and Asia. With increasing arctic warming and higher investment in icebreakers, this may change to round-the-year operations. The present bonhomie between Putin and Xi Jinping had already led to the October 2025 Harbin agreement to make NSR a strategic Arctic trade corridor. NSR suits China for another reason. It reduces heavy Chinese dependence on transit through the Malacca Strait, where India is developing an island base with potential to choke that passage. 

India is diplomatically very heavily invested in the Middle East and has been seeking a route to Europe through Iran and through IMEC. If India were to shift to oil and gas imports through NSR it could face strong pushback and heavy geopolitical pressure. The shift will come with another risk; the conflict zone in the Middle East will be swapped for the possible U.S.-Russian tensions in the narrow Bering Strait and make India dependent on a Sino-Russian architecture beyond its control. Even so, that scenario may still be a long way off. A positive aspect is India’s long-standing trade and military engagement with Russia that has proved its strength in crises. In December 2025, Russia and India signed an agreement formalizing Indian military access to Russia’s Arctic naval ports. Long-term contracts for oil and gas and equity participation in the Arctic infrastructure and shipping capacity may follow. 

For India and Southeast Asian countries, the year-round availability of the NSR will increase overall energy resilience by creating an alternative route that will dampen price surges during the frequent Middle East crises. It will make it more feasible for these countries to tap into multiple oil and gas sources including Russia and the U.S. and, in addition, provide a faster sea route to Europe. There is also the feasibility of synergy between the energy needs of India, the ship-building capacity of South Korea, and the NSR. While the Arctic route will not be a silver bullet for Asian countries to have risk-free access to oil and gas, the shift of focus from the tropics to the North Pole shall reduce the historic leverage by the Middle East and will help keep prices and access stable even during the recurring Middle East flare-ups. 

R.N. Prasher is a retired member from Indian Administrative Service (IAS). His primary expertise is in geopolitics where he has published in RealClear Defense, Asia Times, and The National Maritime Foundation. He has published the book “Geopolitics: Impact on Energy Transition and Energy Security” and has an upcoming publication “Revisiting the Chinese Screen” The views are the author’s own.

The North Sea Route as an Alternative to the Hormuz-Red Sea Conundrum was originally published on Global Security Review.

Amid U.S. involvement in a war against Iran, President Donald J. Trump has decided to double down on previous public expressions of disregard and distrust toward NATO. President Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO several times since his reelection. His repeated jibes at the alliance have raised concern among European defense experts and government officials. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder recently noted that “It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense.” And French President Macron indicated on April 2nd that, in his view, U.S. President Trump was undermining NATO through his repeated threats to withdraw from the alliance. Raising new fears of American abandonment on the part of European leaders, Trump, in various interviews and social media posts within a few days, said that the United States “will remember” France’s refusal to assist in the war against Iran; that NATO was a “paper tiger”; and that “Putin knows that, too, by the way.”

The most recent Presidential broadsides against NATO reflected Trump’s frustration with European allies who chose not to involve themselves in the war against Iran and/or denied their political and military support for the actions taken under Operation EPIC FURY—an effort that Secretary of War, Hegseth describes as “laser-focused [to] destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons.” But this hesitancy among European allies should not have surprised U.S. leadership. Neither NATO as an alliance nor individual European governments were consulted before the decision to go to war, nor were they fully informed until the operation was already in progress. Further to the issue of NATO support, Trump’s address to the nation on April 1st simply assumed that the United States would wind up its military operations within several weeks and would turn the problem of unblocking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz over to European countries and others. In addition, Western European governments have strong public support for putting distance between themselves and the war in Iran. Popular majorities in every country oppose the U.S. and Israeli campaign, and European opposition to the war is enhanced by Trump’s personal unpopularity on that side of the Atlantic.

An additional element in the split between Trump and NATO was the Russian interpretation of its implications for the war in Ukraine, and more broadly, for Russia’s national security strategy writ large. Prolonged U.S. commitment to war in the Middle East could deplete the availability of military assets that would otherwise be available to sustain Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. The global spike in gas and oil prices was an obvious boon to the Russian economy and, from the standpoint of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an unwelcome distraction for European leaders from the priority of supporting Ukraine. Russia also took advantage of Epic Fury to reinforce its support for Iran by providing targeting information for Iranian missile attacks against Israel and other regional states. Russia and Iran had already been sharing technology and knowledge with respect to drone warfare even prior to the launch of military operations against Tehran.

To some extent, the volatility in the Trump administration’s approach to NATO reflected the President’s frustration at his inability to broker a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Vladimir Putin viewed Russia’s war as existential and refused to acknowledge that there was any distinction between Ukrainian and Russian civilizations, let alone sovereignties. The Ukrainians responded in kind, resisting Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory with creative use of drone technology and edgy defensive strategizing that put at risk a variety of targets in Russian territory, including bomber bases and critical infrastructure. Worse for Putin, his invasion in 2022, preceded by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, refocused NATO on its primary mission of deterrence and defense in Europe as opposed to “out of the area” operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the formerly Cold War neutral states, Sweden and Finland, were added to NATO’s membership because of Russia’s attempted coup de main against Kiev that turned into the longest and most destructive war in Europe since World War II. Caught in a trap of his own making, Putin continued to pour troops and material into the battlefields of Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine to support a more favorable negotiating position, should productive negotiations ever materialize.

Given Trump’s propensity for rearranging the deck chairs on foreign policy via Truth Social memoranda, it is conceivable that he will tone down the anti–NATO rhetoric once he has decided on a strategy for winding down the U.S. military campaign in Iran. The process of deconflicting the Strait of Hormuz will likely involve participation from European nations and other countries. Almost nobody benefits from continued bottlenecks in global shipping of oil and other vital commodities. Regardless of the outcome in Iran, the United States needs NATO, and NATO needs the United States. Without the U.S. as the indispensable leading partner, NATO Europe has insufficient nuclear or conventional deterrence against further Russian aggression. This assertion implies no disregard for the steps that the U.S. European allies have already taken since 2022 to improve the quality of their armed forces and military–industrial complexes. It is instead a recognition that the unique American nuclear deterrent and conventional war-fighting capabilities, supported by European determination to resist further Russian aggression, create a global as well as a regional deterrent for Russia and its partners (The CRINKs – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) that benefits not only NATO but also world peace. On the other hand, a divided and internally fractious NATO invites further aggression within and beyond Europe.

Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous works on nuclear deterrence, arms control, and military strategy. He is a senior fellow at NIDS and a recent contributor to the Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies edited by Dr. Alexander Hill (Routledge: 2025). The views of the author are his own.

Trumping NATO was originally published on Global Security Review.